STIMY 75: Mumu the Stan aka MOON HMZ (Founder, Malaysia NFT)

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Moon: At that time I had only started writing again in 2019. I haven't done visual art.

So I felt that just coloring someone else's drawing. I just did it for fun. And it really helped me get back to my creativity in terms of visual art.

I was just like coloring it, posting it on Instagram and Twitter. And he started noticing it and he liked it and shared it a couple of times. From there, I started making my own fan art.

Instead of just coloring Mike's art I started making like pixel art and he really liked it.

And when he got into NFTs which is a sort of digital token right. That you use for your art. That's when he started talking about it a lot on stream, on Twitch

He was trying to educate fans on Twitter and on Twitch. And I made a joke, like I don't have any money to do or buy this kind of stuff. And he said like, if you make your pixel art as an NFT, I would buy the first one. And that that's what started it all.

Ling Yah: Hey everyone!

Welcome to episode 75 of the So This Is My Why podcast. I'm your host and producer Ling Yah, and this is a really exciting episode for me, because we are about to launch with this episode, a mini NFD crypto series here in this podcast.

Now I imagine you have heard all about NFT.

That $69 million digital artwork that was sold by Beeple, Dogecoin, going to the moon, GM greetings, Cryptopunks, and people spending hundreds of thousands, if not millions on what essentially constitutes a JPEG?

Has a portion of the world collectively lost it's mind?

Now I'm going to come straight out and say, I'm no expert. But I'm intrigued. So I'll be deep diving into this world, learning and sharing as I go. And I hope you find it enlightening.

If it's your first time being exposed to the NFT crypto world welcome. Please join me for this ride. And let me know what you think. And what questions do you like me to raise to future NFT guests.

If you have been in the scene for a while, I hope you find this enlightening as well. Because we will be meeting NFT artists, founders, the creator of the first investment DAO for women, crypto investors, the tech guys that make it all possible and so many others.

But first let's get a guest of the week, moon.

Moon is a young Muslim mother from Malaysia. An artist, poet and published author/illustrator who shares how she battled depression pretty much her whole life and how she eventually got out of it and entered the world of NFT because Mike Shinoda, the lead singer of Linkin park, told her that he would buy her first NFT. And mind you, that's a big step because the minting cost for that NFT took up one third of her salary.

We also cover some of the fundamental. What are NFTs? Why should artists be excited about it?

How do you identify the scams? Because let's face it. There are a lot of those out there right now. And also, the reality of being a female in the space, the lack at the moment of diversity, and how moon's seeking to change this. I'd also like to add a little note before we dive in.

The NFT/crypto space is evolving very quickly.

There are tons of opinions and stances adopted by people. Whether a certain blockchain might be more environmentally friendly than the other, how you should evaluate NFT high drops, and so much more. So please don't ever take anything set here as investment advice.

You must always, always do your own research. And if in doubt, just reach out. Use Twitter. Hop onto a Discord channel or two. Everyone honestly, is just starting to learn and experiment with what's possible. And that's why it's so exciting for me because I'm going to try and speak to all these people who're trying to push the boundaries of what's possible in web 3.0.

So are you ready?

Let's go.

Moon: I've always been creating ever since I was a kid. My mom would always say that I would be alone by myself drawing, writing. I would use my dad's office papers and make comic books and draw a bunch of stuff. And I would use up my exercise books, just writing stories and drawing pictures.

So yeah, I've always been creative my whole life and I guess it goes without saying like all children, they start out as creatives, right? We just like draw and make stuff and from that I just never, ever stopped.

Ling Yah: And I read from your blog that at the time you were also battling depression most of your life and you had two moments when you were 15 and you were 26, 29. And when you were younger, that creative part of you, the writing was immensely helpful for you, right?

Moon: Yeah, definitely. Because when I was a teenager I was going through adolescence and depression, and I would stay in my room and write so many poems. I would write every day I would draw every day.

I didn't have many close friends that I could talk to. So it was just all about letting it out through my art. I was definitely creating a lot of Art. I would pour out my emotions where it didn't have anywhere else to go. That's my escape. It was definitely art and yeah so it really helped me.

Ling Yah: And was that creating part helpful when you also battled that depression period around I think 2016, 2017?

Moon: So the thing was because I've been always been creative and I've always been like making stuff, when I was at my darkest moments I could write about it or I could draw about it.

But at that time I was 26, 27, my depression started with postpartum depression. The funny thing about depression is , at that time because I was a new mother, it felt like I have no right to be depressed.

I have such a wonderful child and wonderful family. So even admitting to myself about it or writing or creating art themed around depression, I felt like I couldn't do it. It would be like admitting that something is wrong and that my life isn't perfect.

That is what actually made it worse, just trying to ignore the situation. That went on for a couple of years and I went through a creative block. I didn't create anything.

It was a terrible situation. Everything was just bottled up inside. I didn't talk to anyone about it. I didn't admit even to myself about it.

I couldn't create art and so I felt like I lost a part of myself and I didn't even know who I was anymore. I'm taking care of child and that's it.

I quit my job at that time because I thought that's the best thing to do. To spend time with my child because I love him and want to take care of him. And I thought I could freelance, but even then it was hard to find jobs.

And two, it was very difficult as a freelancer and taking care of a child. So it was just a mess. Yeah, that was my darkest moments. I lost my identity I felt, and I felt terrible about that because obviously I have a lovely family, Depression is a mental illness. It doesn't have to make sense.

Ling Yah: Did you know at the time that you were going through depression, because that whole period where you were not creating was seven years which is a really long time to feel loss and not having your identity. You said once that you're also feeling suicidal. So what was that change? How do you get out of such a long period of feeling lost?

Moon: I had very hard time and around 2017 one of like the, the band that I listen to a lot when I was 15, when I was a teenager, right.

Alone in my room. So Linkin Park is the band. And so the lead singer, he passed away from suicide, right. So from there, like the awareness and conversation around mental health started becoming less like a taboo or a stigma.

It hit me at that moment, like, if I don't seek help, this is going to end terribly, right. It took me two years to gather up the courage to finally seek professional help, which I did in 2019.

Because of how Chester Bennington passed away, I couldn't listen to Linkin Park music anymore. It was like triggering.

But in 2019, when I started going to therapy and getting my medications the therapist suggested to start writing in a diary again.

And also, I wanted to do some investigation of my past. So I went through my old stuff at my parents' house and I found this fan art that I drew from Linkin Park.

And it was like, oh, I wonder what he's up to.

And then I saw that he released an album post-traumatic which dealt with you know, the aftermath of that whole situation.

I was scared to listen, but after a while with the medication, I gathered courage and it was really cathartic that album really helped a lot.

From seeing how unapologetically raw that the emotion felt so cathartic just listening to it.. And then I started writing again. I started creating. again. So yeah, that definitely helped me come to terms and get creative again.

Ling Yah: And how did that lead you to starting a stan account?

Moon: After like I started listening to post-traumatic then I was like, oh, maybe I can slowly start listening to Linkin park again. So I slowly started listening to mostly like Linkin park songs that had Mike vocals on them.

And then I could start to listen to the ones that had Chester's vocals on them, and then I could start watching concerts.

That was how I cope at that time. That was like my entertainment and like my my coping mechanism.

And I was just like, you know, watching a lot of Lincoln park, And I want wanted to connect with other fans about that. So. Yeah, I made a stat account and it was just for fun.

It was just like making memes, making jokes, talking about our favorite songs.

Ling Yah: Stan account is basically an account devoted to celebrity, right?

Moon: Within the fandom is devoted to a celebrity and you connect with other fans. Just like make memes about the person or the band and the fandom or whatever. It's a place where people hang out and share a common interest.

Ling Yah: So Mike himself, he's also a creative and you started coloring his twitch drawings.

Moon: In 2020, when the pandemic started he started streaming on Twitch and he would make music and also draws cause he is an artist illustrator as well. Then he'll post them on Instagram for fans to color.

At that time I had only started writing again in 2019. I haven't done visual art .

So I felt that just coloring someone else's drawing. I just did it for fun. And it really helped me get back to my creativity in terms of visual art.

I was just like coloring it, posting it on Instagram and Twitter. And he started noticing it and he liked it and shared it a couple of times. From there, I started making my own fan art.

Instead of just coloring Mike's art I started making like pixel art and he really liked it.

And when he got into NFTs which is a sort of digital token right. That you use for your art. That's when he started talking about it a lot on stream, on Twitch

He was trying to educate fans on Twitter and on Twitch. And I made a joke, like I don't have any money to do or buy this kind of stuff. And he said like, if you make your pixel art as an NFT, I would buy the first one. And that that's what started it all.

Ling Yah: So two terms I want to tease out for those who don't understand. What is pixel art? How would you find it?

Moon: It's art that's made up pixels of course. All digital art is made of pixels, but the pixels are visible. You can see the pixels one by one. So that's my definition of pixel art. And for me, My pixel art is created by placing pixels one by one.

I put my pixels one by one individually and create the picture or animation from it.

Ling Yah: So you started that discovery I imagine of what is an NFT because Mike said he was going to buy your first NFT.

Moon: So NFTs are basically a token that represents a digital asset that is on the blockchain, So a blockchain is a network of computers that is decentralized, meaning there is no one person who controls. It's not like Google can control it or anything. It's thousands or hundreds of computers participating in that block chain and it records every transaction.

So It's a digital ledger. So everything can be checked proven on the blockchain and no one can edit it.

Ling Yah: And just to go a little bit into the definition of NFT. What can be an NFT? Is it anything that's digital?

Moon: The misconception right now is that NFT is just for digital art .

NFT can be anything because the NFT is the digital certificate that ties to the assets. The asset can be art, it can be digital, like trading cards for a game. It can be game assets. It can be NBA, top shots, like moments of basketball shots.

It can be even like representing a physical property. There's realtors and real estate agents that use that. It can be an entry ticket to a concert. So yeah. It's anything.

Ling Yah: It can even be I mean like a blog post, right? If you want to crowdsource for an investigative journalist.

Moon: It can be a blog post. It can be a piece of code. It can be a game. Anything that you can upload on the internet basically. Even not upload on the internet like the property.

It's just the certificate on the blockchain and the NFT proves that you own that piece. Instead of just a piece of paper.

Ling Yah: So you've figured it out what an NFT was. But how do you figure out how to create an NFT?

Moon: Obviously I asked Mike what to do. Basically you first have to create a wallet and then you have to have some cryptocurrency because you want to mint your NFT.

So minting it is basically when you publish it on the blockchain as an NFT. It's like when you print your merchandise at the factory. That's when the production happens. Then you have to list it for sale.

I found out how to do that and I minted my first NFT.

Ling Yah: And that minting, it is quite expensive. I think that it was one third of your salary to mint your first NFT. Weren't you worried? It's so expensive.

Moon: Yeah. I was worried a bit. But because I had Mike guaranteeing that he would buy it and he kept his word. He bought it.

That minting part is expensive on Ethereum, which is a proof of work blockchain. But I left that blockchain after a couple of weeks.

Ling Yah: Why did you leave that blockchain?

Moon: Because I learned about the environmental aspect. Because it uses a lot of energy. And I don't think this is something that I want to participate in.

Ling Yah: So what was the solution? Did you discover that it wasn't as energy draining as you thought it would be?

Moon: When I stopped minting my NFTs this artist who was one of the person who actually got everyone talking about the environmental aspect, his name is Johnny messier. So I commented is there anything I can do? Is there, like alternatives?

He invited me to join this discord, which is a clean NFT discord. I was like, what is clean NFT? I learned that there are a lot of other options out there.

Proof of work is a very energy intensive consensus mechanism for a blockchain, because in order for all the participating computers or participating people to be rewarded for processing all that information, it's based on how much you work on how much that computer works.

And They do all these intense RB is. It's just to prove that you're working this intense calculations to get their reward. So. There's other blockchains out there that use proof of stake in which they're all using instead of those intense calculations, they're rewarded on how much they stick onto the blockchain.

Ling Yah: What do you mean by stake on the blockchain?

Moon: You have a certain amount of coins you put that to stake, like a security.

Ling Yah: Just to try and understand that a little bit more, a lot of people would then say ethereum, yes, it does consume a lot of energy, but the way that the banking system works, it consumes even more than we actually even realize.

It doesn't create as much of an impact on the environment as you imagine.

Moon: Yeah, actually it is true that the traditional banking system does consume a lot of energy as well.

And you can't track that because the transactions, they're not transparent like on the board end for anyone can see, right. And everything is transparent. You can calculate yourself, just with the data that's available.

Ling Yah: I've heard you say before that the environmental impact is also linked closely to minority representation. Why is that?

Moon: Because on ethereum, one, the gas cost is very expensive. So it's not accessible for everyone, $90 to someone living in Europe or America, it's a lot, but not that much. But $90 in Malaysia or Indonesia or Venezuela that's a lot. That is a lot that makes up a significant portion of someone's salary.

So that makes people not just reluctant, that makes it not accessible for a lot of people around the globe.

And secondly, because of the environmental impact, a lot of people are impacted by global warming. There's flooding all over the world. There's rising sea levels and forest fires. So those people don't want to champion something that is part of the problem. That's why I joined clean NFTs and I've been advocating for it ever since.

Ling Yah: I want to drill down a bit more about that minority representation.

For those who don't know you are a young Muslim mother, and I imagine NFT space back then, maybe even now there wasn't many who look and are just like you. So did you feel welcome to that space?

How would you find your community?

Moon: In the beginning, there's a misconception, like even I had that misconception that everyone in NFTs is equal to that stereotype of people in crypto, which is like very capitalistic or very money oriented guys.

I found that not to be the case because there's the crypto people side and then there's the artists. The artists just want to use the technology, make the art and publish it. They're not the same group of people who are like gambling on the crypto side.

There's some overlap there, but they're just like two different populations actually. So It felt like I actually can belong. Because before that I was afraid, like, am I gonna really belong here? And especially when I started on Tezos everyone is really welcoming.

The pioneering marketplace on Tezos at that time was from Brazil. From then on, it's like, there was a lot of artists from Indonesia, Turkey, Brazil which to me, felt very different from what I saw typically at that time.

Ling Yah: Speaking of community, how were you finding it? Where you find them on Discord, on Twitter space? Is that how you connect with other people who are interested in NFTs?

Moon: At first, because I joined the Clean NFT discord, so I got to know people through there. And I also got to know people through Twitter as well.

Once I started minting and proposing my NFTs and collecting other people's, getting to know other people who were meeting on the same marketplace.

Ling Yah: And I imagine you would have also wanted to connect with artists in Malaysia as well. So what was the scene like, because you are known as one of the pioneers of Malaysia NFT.

Moon: At that time, which was in February when I first started minting, I didn't know anyone else who was doing and NFTs. I discovered that very few people were minting entities at the end of 2020. even before, like this NFT hype what's happening, They were just like experimenting. They didn't know one another.

When I was starting to mint around February and March, I wanted to connect and I found a couple of people and so I DMD them and we kept in touch. I asked them, Hey, do you want to set up a group to connect to other Malaysians and have somewhere where we can gather artists and get to know each other and then like, share tips.

That's when I started Malaysia NFT, the Twitter account. I follow these people, which at that time was like eight or 10 people. And, Then I got to know an NFXT which is Malaysian art collective, and they also started. They want it to get into NFTs and they got in touch with me.

I got to know shaman who's known as Nero one on Twitter. He was managing a Facebook group NFT Malaysia. They invited me to join NFX D and from then on, we started minting parties where we would do a live tutorial of how to mint NFT.

An anonymous donor donated around 50 tezos to me and he's like, okay, just onboard more Malaysians.

Ling Yah: How many can you mint from 50,000 tezos?

Moon: A lot! Cause it costs 0.5 or 0.1 Tezos to mint. It just costs a few cents or like RM 1.

Ling Yah: You have the 50 tezos. You could on board even more artist.

Moon: Yeah. So we started doing minting parties. We started onboarding other artists. We send them to start minting, educate them about blockchain and FTS. We show them step-by-step. So the minting party has started with five people and then 10 and 20 people.

And from there at the Malaysian NFT scene uh, grew from like 10 to 30 to like 100, 200. And even then, like when it was like 200, 300, I still do every one of them because like I followed every one of them and we onboard it. Most of them there, there of course were some people who kind of like, got into NFTs on their own that we didn't onboard, but I followed them in and got to know them.

And I knew the names of each one and what art style they made. And we did organize in July, we, partnered with crypto art week Asia, which is a a crypto art event in Asia. There's satellite events in Japan, in Singapore in Taiwan, I think. So yeah, we did the satellite event in Malaysia, although at that time was PKP.

So it was like a virtual event. It was received quite well. We got covered in Malaya mail in new straits times in like a bunch of other local media.

In August this local platform called Pintos IO launched and from then it was an explosion of music, artists joining NFTs.

Ling Yah: For those who don't know, what is Pentas IO?

Moon: Pentas IO is an NFT platform built by Malaysians and it lives on the Binance blockchain.

Ling Yah: This happened around seven months because we're speaking in March 2022, I imagined this space has evolved very, very quickly especially with thousands of new people joining in.

So what's happening now? What are the things that people should know about that's happening within the Malaysia NFT space?

Moon: Last year NFXT organized the first physical NFT event called portals. And that's when a lot of Malaysian NFT artists met for the first time.

For me, the concern right now is the locals are only selling and buying between Malaysians. I would like them to explore the international scene more.

Right now the problem is everything is so insular within the local scene you can't have a lot of whales. Whale is like those people with a lot of crypto bags .

There's not a lot of Malaysian whales so it is a bit of a struggle for Malaysian artists to get those sales.

Ling Yah: I do wonder though, you manage to get Mike to buy your first NFT.

He's definitely not Malaysia. Why is it that so many Malaysian artists are struggling to be international? What's holding them back?

Moon: It's probably like a Malaysian thing where they're a bit shy. They're not so confident or they want to start off with the local scene and then slowly start to go into the international scene.

Ling Yah: Are there any particular case studies that you can bring to light to show how people have gotten involved internationally and succeeded?

Moon: There's this Indian artist called Visy. She has posted before about how she got discriminated against in the Malaysian scene. And internationally , one of her collectors is Snoop Dogg.

And there's other artists such as Great Owls, Alexander chia, Rochelle, and a few others who have been able to have their art work exhibited at international exhibitions as well.

Ling Yah: Have you observed any commonalities or tactics they've used to get this kind of international support?

I mean, to have Snoop Dogg buy your NFTs. She must have done something.

Moon: The thing with all these artists is they interact with the international audience. They chat with other artists and on platforms that are international.

I'm a champion for representation and diversity in the NFT space, because all these successful artists were like straight white males and that is something that you want to address.

People have language and financial barriers when it comes to blockchains, like Ethereum.

So those kinds of things add up to give equal starting points for people, even though the blockchain and ETF is all about decentralization and like having like an equal thing for everyone, but, you know, real life does affect those things.

So that's why I'm, I'm a champion for this. And the community owned marketplace that we're building, we're trying to have those representations. And we've been having like Twitter spaces with the certain language from like the official Twitter account. It's not just English resources, but we also have Chinese, we have Portuguese, we have Spanish and we have like Indonesian Malaysian.

So people who have language barrier, we build something that represents everyone.

Speaking your representation,

Ling Yah: I heard you speak about that fact that you were on several blacklists that were going around. They were basically saying that oh, you should block certain people. And I wonder, if you could speak a bit about that, like, why are these lists and why would they target you?

Moon: Oh.

Those were happening during the time when we discovered about the environmental impact of NFTs and then these NFD haters were like everyone, block all these people who are involved in NFTs. They steal your art and they burn trees.

I felt like why? I use proof of stake, which is energy efficient. You can, run a node on a raspberry pie, which uses three Watts a day.

Ling Yah: So let's speak to the artists who are listening and they want to explore NFTs.

So one of the questions I was wondering was why should they do NFTs? Why not just like a traditional digital art collection?

Moon: You do NFTs because one, you can get royalties on every resale. In the traditional art world for example, if I made a painting and I sold it for RM10 and suddenly my painting becomes semi famous or my work becomes more in demand.

And so this person who first bought it for 10 Ringgit sell it for a hundred ringgit. That person who just bought my artwork for tendering to get, they get a hundred and, and I get nothing. And then somehow along the line that this work becomes more in demand.

And then the second person then sell it for 1000 ringgit. So that person gets 1000 ringgit and the original artists, me, still just got 10 Ringgit out of that.

With NFTs, those royalties are set into the contract when you make them.

So with that, if I sat in an NFT at 10% royalties and I sold it for 10 ringgit, and this person who bought it sell it for 100 ringgit. I get 10% of that.

So it does empower the creators more instead of just the speculators. Speculating has been in the traditional art world as well.

And another thing with NFTs, you don't have to make something else out of your digital art.

If you're a digital artist, and you make a digital painting, you can just sell that as the asset. You don't have to make a t-shirt or a mug or prints, . It can be in its native format which is something that we haven't had before. Obviously selling merchandise is cool, but there's costs involved, right?

Manufacturing is one of the most polluting things on planets. How many t-shirts do I have to sell to make this much when I can sell NFTs and make the same amount without that cost of manufacturing and shipping and the carbon footprint of manufacturing and so on.

So those are some things that you can consider if you want to get into NFTs.

Ling Yah: Do you feel like NFT has allowed you to enhance the way that you do art, or you've seen it evolve with time because you've gotten into NFT?

Moon: Definitely because I've been exposed to a lot of different art disciplines by interacting with other artists who are doing NFTs. I've gotten to know people who make glitch art, and then interactive code based art.

And I got to collaborate with them and make interactive code art based on my art. Those kinds of things is hard to replicate in another space.

And with NFTs, I've been able to quit my job and focus full-time on art. I get to fulfill my vision at my own pace. That's quite liberating for me.

Ling Yah: Do you need to know tech in order to be an NFT artist?

Moon: You don't need to be super into tech. You just have to do some research on how to do the stuff and just understand.

You can be an NFT artists. You don't even have to be a digital artist. You can be a painter and take a picture of that and sell that as your NFT. You could send the physical art to the NFT buyer, or you could just make additions and you keep the physical art to yourself and other people get the multiple additions, just like if you were to make prints.

Ling Yah: And a lot of people the reason why they're not into NFTs because they hear NFT and the word scam is linked to it . That's a fact there are scams running around. There's lots of money. People are jumping in. How do you sift through that noise and avoid the scams? What do you look out for?

Moon: I would say that NFTs aren't a scam in of itself. It's like saying emails are a scam because people do scam emails and a lot of people fall for them.

NFT is a tool. It's what you make of it. It can be used for good. It can be neutral and it can be used for bad.

When people say NFTs are scam, that's just incorrect. You would say that in the NFT scene, there are lots of scams and it's something that people who aren't scammers or just artists like me are actively trying to avoid. We're actively trying to make people aware of them and not fall for them.

We are trying to educate people on how to identify these scams. So how do we identify these scans is like, you know, you have to do your own research.

If something seems too good to be true, it most probably is. And just like if you want to buy a Monet, you don't just like, Hey, that looks like a Monet, I'll buy it. You would go through the trouble of certifying that it is real.

So the same with NFTs, you would go and click on the wallet and look at the transactions. Does something seem fishy? Can you trace it back?

Ling Yah: What stands out as fishy?

Moon: For example, if that wallet was just created two hours ago, and then they've minted a whole bunch already and they don't have any socials linked to that account, that's pretty fishy.

And if the artists didn't share that they minted an NFT and you saw their artwork it was probably stolen.

Not all NFTs are stolen art. There's people stealing people's art and minting them as NFTs, which has happened to me, in the real world as well, where someone took my art and started selling merchandise from them.

Oh, wow.

So, yeah, that happens in the real world as well.

So if someone DMs you with like, Hey I have a perfect opportunity for you. All you have to do is like download this file and it ends with an SRC or it has a password.

That is usually a scam where you download like a malware, which would wipe your wallet. There's also scams where people like, Hey, I'm going to bid on your art, but I want you to send me the money first so that I can bid on it. That's obviously a scam. So those are things that we are aware of.

Ling Yah: So that's one thing you said about how one person can basically copy and sell another artist's art. For me, if I don't know that artist and I don't know it's their art, I wouldn't even be alert to this possibility.

So how do I even identify what is genuine or not? I suppose, on open seat you can verify accounts. Right. And so those should be legitimate, but are there other ways?

Moon: What I do personally if I see an artist and I haven't seen them before, I would look at the wallet. If it was just created like two hours ago and they minted a whole bunch that's already like, fishy enough. And you would see where the originator account is because everything is transparent on the blockchain, right.

If the artwork has no social accounting to it, then it's harder to identify.

Or you can do a reverse search. The handy thing with digital art is you can just do a reverse Google image search, and if it comes up elsewhere and it's not someone who published that first, didn't say that they minted it, just be a little bit aware.

I can't do that with physical art. I probably could with Google lens or something, but it's not going to be as accurate.

Ling Yah: Obviously there's a lot to learn and people probably want to reach out to you. What is the best way to reach out not just to you about also the whole community, find out more?

Moon: So you can follow Malaysia NFT on Twitter. Also NFXT IO which is the Malaysian art collective who also does a lot of NFTE education. You can follow those accounts and you can join our discourse and ask questions there.

Ling Yah: You have definitely gone through a journey yourself personally and also discovering this NFT space. Do you feel like at this point you have found your why?

Moon: I definitely have found my WHY.

For me, I create art to heal myself and hopefully other people as well. I create my art to express something that can't be expressed through words and hopefully other people can connect to it. But mostly it is to heal that depressed 15 year old me and that depressed 26, 27 year old me. And to show them that, you're worth it. And it's not narcissistic to feel that way about yourself.

You should be able to reach in towards your past self who has been through trauma and you should be able to, heal them . or like give them comfort.

Ling Yah: What kind of legacy do you want to leave behind?

Moon: I do want to be a voice for people who are afraid to speak of certain things.

And I want to leave a legacy where my family can be proud of what I've done and to have an impact on people who feel that they have not been represented or, haven't been heard.

Ling Yah: And what do you think are the most important qualities of a successful person?

Moon: I think a person who is successful, doesn't worry about a future.

So I don't think I'm quite there yet because I do worry sometimes . The person who can live in the moment at all times.

Ling Yah: And where can people go to find out more about what you're doing, support you and just be involved in the NFT world?

Moon: You can follow me on Twitter, which is twitter.com/mumu, M U M U underscore the Stan T H E S T a N.

And you can also find the rest of my links to my NFTs, my Instagram, and all that on my link tree, which is link T R dot E slash mumu, underscore the Stan.

Ling Yah: And I'm going to include, all those in the show notes so people can just find it. Is there anything else you'd like to share that we haven't covered so far?

Moon: People who are curious about NFTs and want to get into NFTs, I think should check the purpose that you want to get into NFTs. Is it just because of money? Is it because of the technology?

Is it because of freedom? Because all of those come with a different thing that you have to be concerned about. If it's just about money, it's not that easy.

You would see success stories like, oh, people sold for 69 million. Not everyone can sell their NFTs for 69 million.

You still have work hard. And if it's for the technology, that is actually the best thing, because you can research about like technology and understand the ethos of why blockchain exists. It is for decentralization and putting the power back into people's hands and not into the hands of corporations.

So that's there and if it's just for freedom, I welcome anyone to do it.

Another thing is, for people who are NFT haters or a little bit like doubtful about NFTs that's okay to not like NFTs. You don't have to be into NFTs, but I would say please don't attack people for being into NFTs.

That's just not right to attack people for that. There's a lot of stuff that are misunderstood about NFTs. Even if you think that you know about NFTs and you have done your research and you have valid reason for not liking NFTs, it's still not valid reason to be harassing people about it.

So just be kind to each other.

Ling Yah: And that was the end of episode, 75. The show notes and transcript can be found at www.sothisismywhy.com/75.

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And stay tuned for next Sunday, because we will be meeting our second NFT founder.

She's had a really successful NFT launch, which basically means she sold out her 8,888 NFTs. So we're going to deep dive into all of that.

How did you get into the world of NFTs? How did she build her team?

Which included trying to source for a Web3 dev from Twitter. How she hustled to gain publicity for a collection. What it takes a minute a discord channel, which has over 25,000 people. The partnerships she's building to bring value to her community, why she's creating a legal entity for her NFT project, and so much more.

Want to learn more?

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